And that has made all the difference
by avaya29
Summary: Severus Snape is troubled by pleasant dreams. Severus Black's dreams, on the other hand, aren't pleasant at all. Snape mentors… Snape?
1. Chapter 1

There was a cold, clear pale blue sky, and, small below, the daffodils blew on the hillside under dry-stone walls and bare trees not yet in bud. Severus's broom picked up speed and he heard a whoop as his son sped up from below him. He turned tightly and dove, Harry joining and they spiralled tighter and tighter around one another as the ground rushed up towards them, daring each other to hold on that second longer – and broke off together and swung up again, laughing. Severus caught Harry's merry, green eyes and grinned, feeling a rush of pride in his son, nearly grown now, strong, fast, brave and so astonishingly good-hearted.

'Let's go again, Dad!' and they were going up again – no snitch, just racing and diving for the sheer feel of the air on their faces. Severus loved flying, whether on broom or as the hawk that he had learnt to become, but it was his son who had taught him the joy and purity of speed and the dance of the sky.

Severus peeled off first this time, with not quite the recklessness of youth that Harry showed. Severus had come to watch some of Harry's Quidditch games and had been in terror at some moments. None this year, of course – Harry had been dreadfully disappointed about that, and for all that the Triwizard Tournament was a major international contest, there was only one event a term. Hardly worth cancelling Quidditch over.

'Time to stop, Harry,' warned Severus.

'Aww, Daaad!'

All right, thought Severus, amused. Maybe he still has a bit of a way to go before being fully grown. 'Look.' He pointed. 'Pa's coming home.'

Down below, a figure was approaching their gate. Harry grinned – 'Race you!' – and swooped swiftly down towards the ground. Severus followed, smiling as the man below turned and shaded his eyes against the sky at the two riders bearing down on him.

Harry reached him first, naturally, and circled his broom around him before pulling up sharp in front of him, leaping gracefully to the ground. Severus could hear the man laugh as he broke his stride to avoid bumping into Harry, who grabbed him for a hug and received a tousle to his hair in response.

And now Severus was landing too, tipping his broomstick up to stop as his feet touched the damp grass. He couldn't help smiling at both of them.

'Hello, Sirius.'

'Hey, darling,' smiled Sirius, reaching for him, arm still on Harry's shoulder. Severus slipped in close beside him, and Sirius' arm twined around his waist as he tilted his face up for a kiss. Severus leaned down in a familiar warmth and affection, brushing his lips briefly against his husband's…

Severus woke up.

—o0o—

He wanted to scrub his brain, he truly did. A hot shower would have to suffice.

For the length of that dream, he had been married to Sirius Black – _Black_ , of all people! – and bloody Potter was his _son_. He had truly _loved_ both of them. And he could still remember what that felt like, the surge of belonging as he leaned in to kiss him…

Ugh.

Severus sat down alone to a breakfast of eggs and toast. He wanted nothing more than to forget the whole thing. Him, father to that hateful brat? Husband of… oh god.

And yet… for the length of that dream, he was happy.

Happier than he ever remembered being in real life. Even the times he had spent with Lily – back when she was alive, back before she turned away from him, before he betrayed her – he had always felt unsure, knowing himself unworthy, deep down. No surprise she had rejected him in the end. It was no more than he deserved.

But this. He had felt warm, confident in the love of his family.

As if Severus could ever have a family. Especially those two.

He pulled on his outer robe and stepped out of his chambers. He needed to get those images out of his head. _Kissing_ Sirius Black. Ugh. The man who had almost killed him, who had made his life hell throughout his time at Hogwarts, who had –

– _not_ betrayed Lily to her death, that had turned out to be Pettigrew; at least, Albus believed that, though Severus wouldn't have put it past Black, and still wasn't at all sure Albus hadn't been fooled by his desire to see the best of people –

… and not that it would have come to that if Severus hadn't betrayed her first…

He needed to clear his thoughts.

At least it was the Easter holidays. No classes to prepare for. He could normally expect some peace and quiet. Though this year half the castle had stayed, along with the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang crowds.

Down a flight of steps. Into the main corridor.

Potter was still hanging around, of course. That brat never seemed to let him in peace. Didn't he have a home to go to?

Running footsteps behind him. Speak of the devil…

'Potter! No running in the corridors!'

A glare from behind those damnable glasses as Potter, dressed for flying, broomstick over his shoulder, transitioned into a fast walk, defiantly just one notch short of running. Heading for the west door and the Quidditch pitch. Potter was going out flying, no doubt to risk his neck in more foolhardy daredevil stunts.

Like the ones he'd enjoyed in his dream.

Severus hadn't flown in years. He missed it, he realised. The last time was when he refereed that match a couple of years ago. And then he'd been looking out for trouble, looking out for _Potter_ , so he couldn't enjoy it. It had actually been quite a stressful experience.

Of course he couldn't just go out for a jaunt. It wouldn't fit his image. Greasy bat of the dungeons, Death Eater marking time, awaiting his Dark Lord's return. Which could be soon now, if Albus could not find a way to stop it. The Mark was getting steadily darker. The loyal Death Eater had to be the only face he showed, so he could pick up his place in their ranks, reporting everything to Albus. No frivolities, no slackening. His penance, and better than he deserved.

Still, it would be nice to be able go out on a broomstick sometimes.

That was what was making him happy in the dream. The flying. Nothing to do with Potter or Black. That was it. Yes.

Severus woke up.

—o0o—

He lay in bed for a moment, listening to slightly raspy breathing. He couldn't help it; he rolled over, draping his arm over the bare flesh beside him, which moved at his touch, ribs expanding and expelling in a sigh. Sirius rolled towards him, mumbling sleepily, and Severus clung tightly to him.

'…what, dear?' Sirius whispered, throat clogged from sleep. 'Nightmare?'

'Not exactly,' confessed Severus softly, breathing the warm smell of him. 'Just… deeply unpleasant.'

Sirius simply held Severus close, letting him burrow into him and press his head against his chest.

'I dreamt… I dreamt I hated you, like I did back before… but worse. And I hated Harry too, and he wasn't my son, and I was truly vile to him, all the time… as if I'd never got over James or –'

'Hush…'

'And I was spying again and you were – on the run I think, and I blamed you for James and Lily, and…'

'It's over. I'm here now.'

There was silence for a while, Sirius's arm resting over Severus's shoulder.

'You know the worst thing? I was so alone, and so miserable, constantly miserable. Hating everyone and everything…'

'Just a dream, Sev. You have both of us.'

'I know. Just a dream.' He snuggled in – Sirius gave a little hum of contentment – and closed his eyes. 'I'm glad,' he yawned. 'I would hate to live like that.'

Severus woke up.


	2. Chapter 2

Severus had to go to Diagon Alley before the start of term. He had a long list of items he needed to replenish the student supply cabinet in his classroom.

This was, for a change, an activity that was not too unpleasant. Granted that he had to actually interact with the apothecary at least, and there were generally far too many human bodies milling around on the street. Today was no exception, and there was a small queue outside the chocolate shop of people buying last-minute Easter eggs. But he was tall and intimidating enough that they tended to part before him – he at least gained some small satisfaction from that – and then he could engross himself in choosing the appropriate quality ingredients… within the school budget of course, which seemed to shrink by the year.

A young witch came in, holding a small child by the hand. Her dark curly hair bounced under her blue velvet pointy hat. 'Here we are, Lyrica. Do you remember what we were buying today?'

'Glitterbugs!' the child cried enthusiastically. Severus scowled at the jars of shrivelfigs. He did not like enthusiastic children.

'And what are we going to do with the glitterbugs?'

'Make an Easter fire in my bedroom!'

Severus tried to tune them out. The child's mother was talking to old Ben Jiggers now, and the child was wandering. In an apothecary. Dear God, did people have no sense? Not that _he_ was going to keep an eye on the child. He turned pointedly back to the jars on the shelf. Sopophorus bean, sneezewort…

'I'm getting glitterbugs! Mister Man, I'm getting glitterbugs! Hey, Man!'

Severus whirled and gave his coldest glare downwards at the tug on his robes. 'I have no interest in your acquisition. Go before I lose my patience and do something you will regret.'

The child stared at him for a moment. Then she thrust a jar at him. 'Look, Man!'

' _Go AWAY!_ '

He tried to put as much threat into his voice as he could, and was gratified to see the child withdraw, lip trembling, eyes brimming. The mother came over, glaring at him, but he could out-glare anyone. 'Madam, remove your child.'

There. That was two more people who hated him.

As it should be. Everyone should hate him.

He took his time choosing the ingredients he needed, for simple childish potions that bored him to tears. Once upon a time he had imagined a life of cutting-edge research. He would change the face of magic itself. He had invented two potions and three charms even before he left school.

Two of those were not spells he was proud of, now.

Everyone should hate him.

And now. Endless repetitions of boil cure and shrinking solution. Demonstration potions to showcase the simplest concepts for untalented and uninterested teenagers. 'Useful household solutions' that no-one would ever actually need to brew for themselves, because they could be bought in any good apothecary. And, of course, his services to the infirmary, as if being the sole potions master in a school of over three hundred pupils wasn't already a full-time-and-a-half job.

Pain draughts, sleeping draught. Pain draughts, calming draughts, Pepperup. More pain draughts. More dreamless sleep. He had optimised them as far as he could, made all the tweaks and improvements he could think of in the minuscule time he had, but now it was just more of the same.

He felt the regret of abandoned ambition.

Put it aside.

It was no less than he deserved.

He found it soothing, following the familiar steps, feeling the magic ebb and flow from him as he stirred clockwise, widdershins, clockwise again.

Soothing.

It was no less than he deserved.

Severus woke up.

—o0o—

Severus swirled the liquid gently clockwise in the conical flask, holding it up to the large window to judge the colour. Such a wonderful muggle invention, the conical flask! The flat bottom heated the contents more evenly than a cauldron could, and the narrow top restricted evaporation and allowed swirling without spilling. And of course, the glass not only acted as a magic-conductive container but also allowed one to see colour changes much more clearly.

He took the micropipette off its stand and carefully added five hundred microlitres of distilled verantian essence, swirling again and watching as the sediment dissolved and the yellow liquid became clearer and paler. Swirling was a much better technique for infusing magic than stirring a cauldron: much smoother, for one thing, without the accidental up-and-down motion that was so easy to add with a stirring stick. And more even. You could mix thoroughly much more quickly, which reduced the danger of overpowering it with your magic.

Distillation. Filtration. Recrystallisation. Titration. All concepts he had known about, albeit with no great level of familiarity. But in the absence of magical infusion, muggles had refined the techniques and equipment way beyond anything known in the magical world. When he started his chemistry degree he'd been amazed to find that teenagers straight out of school considered these to be basic practical concepts, while he only knew of some of them from certain very obscure potions.

Gel chromatography, on the other hand, had been completely new to him, and bloody amazing. Magical proteins could be purified by gel filtration just the same as non-magical ones. Severus had an 8-ml anion exchange column as well as two long size-exclusion columns with different sized beads. He had isolated the active ingredient from billywig stings and created a series of vastly improved levitation potions for external application.

Perhaps it was because of that dream he'd had that he was so appreciative today of all that he had discovered from the muggle world. Imagine if he'd continued teaching after That Night, with no chance to expand his studies. Stuck forever at the level of chopping things up and stirring them in a cauldron, repeating basic teaching potions over and over and over… No wonder his dream-self was depressed.

Of course there was still chopping and stirring. But rather less. A surprising number of compounds with magical potential could simply be ordered from the Aldrich catalogue and arrive the next week. There is no need to ever squeeze venomous tentacula calyces again once you realise that all you actually need is a little magic-infused pelargonic acid.

'Dad! Are you nearly ready? They'll be here soon!' Harry was calling from the top of the stairs.

Severus held the flask up to the light again. Clear, straw-coloured, slightly viscous liquid. He took a sniff. Just as it should be.

'Just about done here. Are the vegetables in the oven?'

'Just put them in,' smiled Harry, bounding down the stairs.

'And the gravy? Have you remembered to –'

'Dad!' said Harry, laughing. 'I do know how to cook! You want me to help you clean up?'

Severus nodded, and, as Harry rinsed out the burette, took his measuring cylinder to delicately decant seven 30-ml aliquots into a series of minivials he'd set up in a row. With a wave of his wand, labels attached themselves to the bottles, and writing appeared: 'Wolfsease' and the date. Harry took the empty conical flask from him and washed that up as well.

'Come, we need to get changed,' said Severus, removing his lab robe and hanging it up on a peg by the stairs. 'Dress robes please, and for pity's sake do not wear that dreadful silver and purple thing again.'

'Not a chance, Dad, I grew out of it ages ago. Both in size and taste.'

Severus hustled Harry up the stairs, and Harry promptly disappeared into his room. Severus took a quick trip through the bathroom to give his hands and arms another wash and rid them of the scent of the lab, and then slipped into his own bedroom. Sirius was there, pushing his arms into the sleeves of his new red and black dress coat.

Severus gave him a peck on the cheek, and slipped out of his corduroy trousers and pulled on a dark blue under-robe and a lightweight burgundy over-robe. Sirius liked tight, close tailoring that drew from Muggle and American wizarding fashions for inspiration, but for sheer showiness Severus had always preferred light robes that billowed behind him as he walked. And he would never admit it, even to Sirius, but he thought the two contrasting styles made a nice dramatic effect as they walked out together.

Through the window on the stairs, Severus could see Andi and Ted Tonks coming up the path. Behind them, Remus and Dora were holding hands.

'Well, it's about time those two got together,' said Harry's voice behind Severus. 'Do you think the Ministry…?'

'The Ministry have their heads firmly up their own arses, as usual,' replied Sirius instantly. 'There's no way they'll remove him from the registry while he still has to take any potion at all, even if he can miss a few doses before it wears off.'

'But he's practically an animagus, with the wolfsease!'

'That won't matter to them,' said Severus quietly. 'As long as his condition has to be controlled by potions, they won't consider him anything but a beast and a danger.' He looked sidelong at Sirius.

'So they won't let him marry her?'

Severus chuckled. 'They're only holding hands, Harry, let's not start thinking about marriage yet.'

'Oh, but won't it be good to have Moony properly in the family?' grinned Sirius.

They went downstairs, the three of them together, to let their guests in.

—o0o—

'…and so when I come back, there's Harry, sitting on the floor of the shop surrounded by all the boxes he's pulled off the shelves, and he says "Look, Pa, I tidied up!"

Laughter rolled around the table.

'Well, I hope he's a bit more help in the shop these days,' said Andi, nudging Harry with her elbow.

'I dunno, I've not let him try since,' grinned Sirius mischievously. 'Who knows what he'd do to my devices now?'

'It was years ago!' declared Harry hotly, mortified as only a fourteen-year-old boy can be when stories are told of his early years.

'Don't worry, Harry,' smiled Dora, on the other side of Harry. 'It can't be worse than the time Daddy took me in to his work –'

'When you were seven and you pulled all the cables out of the mixing desk and tried to make them into a skipping rope? Yeah, heard that one.'

'No, I was thinking of the time I pulled the gaffer tape off the floor so I could take it to Daddy and ask him what it was, and then tripped over the cables it was supposed to be taping down.'

'Actually,' Severus put in, 'Harry's been helping me in the lab this holiday. He's becoming quite expert at titration. I suppose that Professor Chalice of yours isn't completely incompetent.'

'Oh, she is,' grinned Harry. 'No idea about modern techniques. I learnt it all from you, Dad.'

'He's even had a hand in that latest batch of Wolfsease for you, Remus,' Sirius put in. 'Don't be surprised if you turn into a squirrel this time.'

' _Pa!_ '

And Severus laughed along with the rest of them.

As the laughter died down, Remus turned to Severus. 'About that…'

Even after all this time, Severus was still uncomfortable with Remus's gratitude. 'Just give me the data I need to complete this trial. Complete the questionnaire after one week –'

'–And each full moon,' Remus finished. 'You don't fool me any more, Severus,' he smiled, gently. 'Thank you.'

The empty plates and serving dishes floated out towards the kitchen, along with the remains of the roast lamb. A parade of new clean dessert plates sailed in, circling the table before settling themselves one in front of each person. From the middle of the table, apparently out of the wood itself, arose a giant dark chocolate egg, which rotated gently in place before starting to rock. There was a cheeping and a tapping and small cracks began to appear, concentrated about a third of the way from the top. The egg rocked further and fell over. The cracks systematically grew and merged and widened, and small chocolate beaks could be seen. Finally the top came off completely and white fluffy chicks pushed themselves out, cheeping and running all over the table. Their down was fine and soft, even though it was made of pure white chocolate.

Severus was torn between grabbing one cheeping chick and callously biting its head off to prove that he was completely unsentimental, and ignoring them and grabbing a piece of the dark shell on the grounds that white chocolate was not real chocolate. Sirius caught his eye and smirked, and Severus knew that Sirius knew exactly what he was thinking.

'Your idea, Sirius?' asked Ted.

Sirius shook his head, grinning. 'It's all Harry's doing. He transfigured the moulds and set the chocolate, and made them fluffy after. I only helped him a bit with the animation. He was doing it all himself for the last two chicks.'

Harry blushed at the praise, but his eyes were shining. 'You put the stasis on the egg and made the pocket in the table though,' he pointed out.

'Think we should sell them in the shop next year?' asked Sirius, herding a chick with his finger and watching it stumble onto his plate.

There was a chorus of approval at this idea.

'I'll have to take you out of school then, Harry, so we can get stocked up,' Sirius grinned.

'In his OWL year? You most certainly will not!' Severus snapped before seeing Sirius's face and realising he was being teased.

'I don't know,' rumbled Ted, picking up a chick whose legs had pretty much stiffened. 'Judging by this, he'd get an O in transfiguration if he took it tomorrow.'

Severus had made peace, in his head, with the shade of James Potter. It was easier to forgive a man once he was dead. Especially when he had left Severus such a wonderful, life-changing gift, no matter how unintentionally. But still, Severus appreciated that the name of the man whose talents at transfiguration Harry had inherited was mentioned by no-one.

Even if they were all thinking it.

The chick nearest to Dora stopped cheeping and fell over, still flapping its wings feebly, and she picked it up and stove in the side of it with her thumb. She popped a piece of white chocolate wing into her mouth. 'This is amazing, Harry,' she said. 'Good chocolate too.'

Andi and Remus both refused to eat their chicks until the animation had completely worn off and the chicks were merely very well-carved chocolate models.

Severus woke up.

—o0o—

He found himself trying to recall as much of the dream as he could. The first part, anyway. Conical flasks. _Swirling_ instead of stirring. Would that really work?

You'd have to do a lot more refining. Start with purer ingredients. That would make the actual brewing easier, too; Severus was well aware that a lot of the magic involved in brewing was directed at forcing the materials added to the cauldron to dissolve. Of course, the 'Aldrich catalogue' of his dream must be pure fantasy. A couple of thousand pages of small print selling such a vast number and range of purified compounds? If only.

And as for the idea of the wolfsease potion. Turning a werewolf into a wolf animagus, allowing complete control over the transformation? He couldn't imagine a way of adapting the wolfsbane that way.

But maybe he could find time to seek out a glassblower or something and see if he could get hold of something like a conical flask. That had potential.

Perhaps he should extract the memory and view it in a Pensive, see if there were any more ideas he could pull out of it. It would be a good distraction from the tedium of lesson plans, marking, and the utter, utter frustration of feeling his Dark Mark build when every lead he had on the Dark Lord's plans had come to a dead end.

And if he concentrated on the brewing concepts, perhaps he could forget the warm feeling of friendship, eating Easter Sunday lunch round the table with his family.


End file.
